The recent blog by Anonymous Observer with the same title questioned the treatment of Roozbeh Gilani who has been blocked for a reason unknown to almost all other users. The blog so far has attracted 91 comments and many contributors have asked the site’s admin for the reason of such harsh treatment and for lifting of any bar that may have been placed on Roozbeh. It was extremely disappointing that the admin decided to ignore all those questions with an unbearable level of arrogance. Not even a single comment to acknowledge the requests.
I am not here to tell admin how to do its job. I know how difficult it must be to run a site such as Iranian.com and achieve a balance, but let me remind the admin that the community who participates in this site is already appalled by the unaccountable decision makers in its homeland and that has made some of us sensitive to such attitude. JJ has lectured us on many occasions that civil debate and tolerating the opposite view is a pre-condition to the democracy. He sees IC as an exercise in encouraging democratic debate between Iranians with different points of view. I fully agree with him on both accounts and sincerely thank him for his efforts. But accountability is also a part of democracy. Feedback and response to legitimate questions is also a feature of democracy that we have to learn. I know it is not possible to respond to every question but the level of interest in this case certainly warranted some sort of reply.
I do not need to recount Roozbeh’s qualities as there is already a long list of those qualities in the previous blog by AO. I just wish to repeat that his absence will be a great loss for the site.
What hurts is the whole unfairness of this decision. There is some speculation that he lost his temper during an exchange with Baron Avak. Baron who? I think I may have seen a few comments from someone with that username but nothing of value comes to mind. It is very possible that it was one of the many usernames that an individual used. There are some users on this site who change their username more often than they change their socks. Probably Baron is leaving a comment in another blog right now with another username. For these multi Id polygons blocking of one username means nothing. Roozbeh however only used one username. There are some of us who value the honesty and do not use more than one username. You may think that you have treated both users fairly by banning both but unfortunately that is not the case. At the time that some are discussing Iranians dishonesty and cowardice in one of the main featured articles in the site, you are rewarding dishonesty and cowardice by such decisions.
Finally I have a suggestion. Any person can lose control and use unsavoury comments. Would it not be better to ban any glowing person temporarily for 24 hours until he or she cools off? A full ban could be placed on frequent offenders.
And back to the other person. Baron Avak? Who is Baron Avak?
